Walk With Me
by LiveLaughLove728
Summary: Annabeth and Athena have a conversation after the Giant War's end. *Companion to Drachma For Your Thoughts*


**Hey guys!**

 **So, I got a bunch of requests after writing Drachma For Your Thoughts for an Athena/Annabeth conversation like the one Poseidon had with Percy, so that is what this is. Chronologically, it takes place after DFYT but it's fine to read this one first. Overall, I think it turned out pretty well. I might be changing the name at some point because I'm really not overly fond of it right now, so if it is different in the future, that's why. Any ideas for a different title are welcome.**

 **There's also some Percabeth in this, which a lot of my stories haven't really had lately, so hooray for that! I forgot how much I loved writing those two together, so I just might have to do more of that in the near future. :)**

 **Other than that, give it a read, kindly leave a review in the box below, and enjoy!**

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Central Park was fairly busy, as was not unusual for a Saturday afternoon. It was a little cool, but the sun was shining and the breeze blowing through was mild. Leaves in shades of orange and yellow bounced along the sidewalk around us, scattered by the light wind. It was likely one of the last nice days there would be before winter truly set in and people of all ages had come out to enjoy it.

I walked with Percy, his warm fingers loosely intertwined with my own, heading toward the cafe on the other side of the park that, in my humble opinion, served the best hot chocolate in the city. School this year had turned out to be busy, and with his frequent swim practices and my own heavy homework load, it had been a while since we'd been able to go on a proper date like this. I'd missed it.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Percy looking at me. I turned and met his eyes. "What?"

"You don't have the gray streak in your hair from holding up the sky anymore," he answered.

I narrowed my eyes slightly. I hadn't been expecting that. "I know. I haven't for a while. Neither have you."

"I know," he replied.

He looked about to say more when a shout of, "Heads up!" rose up from the grass to our left and we both looked up to see two young boys in the grass a good distance from us, looking concerned, and another chasing after a yellow Frisbee that was heading straight for us.

Percy let go of my hand and caught it easily out of the air just as the boy reached us. "Sorry!" he said, coming to a stop. He was maybe ten or eleven.

Percy, smirking, replied easily, "It's okay. It happens," and held out the Frisbee to the boy.

"Thanks!" he said, smiling now, and took the toy back from Percy before turning toward his friends again, throwing it into the air toward one of them, and running back to where he'd been before.

I watched the exchange, smiling, and Percy, taking my hand again, gave an embarrassed smile in reply and looked away. "Did you like it?" he asked after a few seconds.

"What?" I asked.

"The gray hair."

"Oh. Well, it led to a lot of weird looks from people and some hard questions to answer." Not that either of those things had ever bothered me much.

He cast me a sidelong glance, a smirk playing around the edges of his lips. "You didn't answer the question."

I sighed and rolled my eyes, smiling a little myself now. "Yeah," I admitted, "I did. It was something I shared with you that no one else had. Like, I don't know, proof that we'd been through a lot together." Percy was grinning now. "It's stupid."

"No it isn't," he said, "I mean, yeah, I guess it's nice to not have to explain why I have gray hair at seventeen, but, well, there's a reason I never tried to dye it back or anything." He shrugged. "I kind of liked it too." I smiled. "But, if it means that much to you, Wise Girl, we can probably dye matching streaks back into our hair. Maybe a cooler color this time though, like blue or red. We could rock that."

I laughed. "No thanks, Seaweed Brain."

He grinned and shrugged in mock resignation, "Suit yourself. It could be awesome though."

I opened my mouth to answer, but a different voice spoke up from behind us then and my response died. "Annabeth." Percy and I whirled around to find ourselves face to face with a woman, about my height, wearing a white blouse, jeans, and combat boots, and with her black hair braided neatly over one shoulder. Her gray eyes, the same ones I saw every time I looked in a mirror, were serious, and her whole person seemed to radiate with a subtle power by which, even without the unmistakable similarities I shared with her, I would have immediately known who she was. And in my shock at her presence, I was at a loss for words.

Percy spoke first. "Lady Athena," he said, sounding nervous.

"Percy," my mother replied coolly with a miniscule nod of her head, "Could I speak to Annabeth _alone_?" Her tone warranted no argument and she put an unmistakable emphasis on the last word.

Percy blinked and eloquently answered, "Um, of course, yeah, um… I'll just, uh," he looked at me, "I'll be over there." He pointed vaguely back in the general direction we had come. I nodded numbly in acknowledgement and he beat a hasty retreat.

"Lady Athena," I said, somewhat weakly, once he had gone, "Mom."

"Hello, Annabeth," Athena replied kindly.

"Um, what are you doing here?" I asked and then immediately regretted it, figuring that was probably a rather rude question to ask a typical goddess. I'd spent way too much time around Percy.

Athena raised an eyebrow but did not otherwise comment. "I'd like to speak with you." she said, "Walk with me." My eyes flicked, almost involuntarily, back to Percy, who had reached one of the benches spaced liberally throughout Central Park and, as I watched, cast a glance in my direction before seating himself down on it to wait. "The sea spawn will still be there when you return," Athena informed me, thoroughly unimpressed.

"Of course, yeah," I said somewhat awkwardly, immediately looking away and falling into step beside my mother, who had begun walking in the direction opposite to the one Percy had just taken. I'd never been so tongue-tied in Athena's presence before, but the past year had changed a lot about the way I viewed our relationship, or lack thereof.

"Now," said Athena, "You may have noticed that the invisibility hat I gave you has regained its power since the war's end."

"Yes," I answered diligently. I'd gotten into the habit, when my Yankees cap had first stopped working, of putting it on every morning to check, even when I knew it wouldn't, if it would turn me invisible. Every morning, month after month, I had been disappointed to find it still acted like a normal cap, until one day, a few weeks after we'd returned from Greece, when I had put it on, fully expecting the same result I'd gotten every morning for the better part of a year, only to have my heart jolt almost painfully in shock and excitement when I'd glanced down and saw absolutely nothing where my body had formerly been. The invisibility hat had worked flawlessly ever since.

Athena nodded once. "I have wanted to speak to you for some time, and I'd like to think I would have done so sooner, had things not been as busy on Mount Olympus and on the earth as they have in the time since the war. However, much has needed to be done to reverse the damage the Giants wrought in the world and some semblance of order has only recently been restored." I nodded, unsure of what to say. Honestly, I was just stunned Athena wanted to speak to me at all after the almost yearlong silence I'd endured up to this point.

"I won't pretend to understand the finer points of the lives of heroes," my mother continued, "I know it won't help anything for me to try. But I do know, Annabeth, that you have sacrificed a great deal, more than most, for Olympus over the past year, notwithstanding that of the Titan War before it. I understand that it was not easy for you and, while my condition during that time could not be helped, my treatment of you while not, shall we say, in my right mind, did not make matters any easier for you." She paused and glanced at me, her gray eyes slightly gentler now.

"However, and I feel this goes without saying, you've performed extraordinarily well in spite of this. You, my daughter, have done what no child of mine, what no hero at all, has ever managed to do before. The quest for my statue was not simple by any means, and I've watched more of my children die in the process of locating it than I care to remember. I'll admit that my faith in you wavered as well at times, and yet, you succeeded where all others before you had failed. And that is, by no means, a small accomplishment. Without your efforts, the Olympians' minds, my own included, would not have been restored and the Giants and their mother would have won the war and razed Olympus to the ground. We owe you quite a debt."

I said nothing as my mother spoke, simply blinking in astonishment. I doubted I would have been able to speak even if I'd had something to say in response, stunned into silence as I was. I never imagined I'd ever have such a discussion with my mother. Poseidon, I knew, had visited Percy shortly after the war's end and thanked him for all he'd done during the quest. He had, presumably, even apologized for everything that had happened. I was not deluded enough to expect the same from my mother, or from any of the other gods or goddesses for that matter. The time in the throne room after the war with Kronos had been surprise enough, and yet, here I was, having a one on one conversation with Athena, who, granted, was not exactly apologizing, but certainly was at least hinting at the fact that she was proud of me. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought I was having some sort of Freudian episode.

"Many heroes, I know, would have given in long before they'd attempted all you've accomplished. You, my daughter, stand apart from the rest and it is only fair that I tell you I am incredibly proud of you. You have far exceeded my expectations."

"Thank you," I managed, floored, trying hard not to gape at the goddess in my shock.

"As for your work on Mount Olympus as Head Architect, I'm sorry to say that Zeus, in his impatience, saw fit to put the rest of the mountain to rights again after he closed you all out of it. It was not my decision and, frankly, I did like the changes you'd planned to make, but I was not in a place to argue the point with him at the time and there is little I can do about the matter now. I'm sorry, Annabeth."

"I understand," I said, trying hard keep the sinking feeling in my chest to a minimum. Athena's words were nothing I hadn't expected. I'd figured my work on the mountain was through the second I'd been unable to access the home of the gods anymore. It wasn't as if the Olympians were going to deal with a destroyed palace indefinitely. The fact that any of the work up there was mine, that I'd been given the opportunity at all, was an extreme privilege. And frankly, it wasn't all that surprising, given how well the gods had kept their promise to Percy about claiming their other children, recognizing the minor gods and goddesses, and freeing Calypso.

"I never intended for you to fall into that pit," Athena added, her voice quieter now, and I got the feeling she'd only just decided to tell me this. "It was shocking to watch, even in the state I was in. I may be a goddess, but I would never want anything like that for any of my children, and while you can rest assured knowing that I will not be allowing Arachne to see the light of day again," she paused, as if the next words were difficult for her to say, "I am grateful Percy Jackson was there to fall with you and to help you survive. The two of you work well together, I can't deny that." With wide-eyes, I just nodded, all thoughts of losing my position as architect forgotten. I figured that was about as close to a blessing to date Percy as I was ever going to get.

"I won't keep you any longer," Athena concluded then, stopping on the sidewalk. "Just know, my daughter, that I am proud of all you've accomplished and of the hero you've become. And I do hope, for your sake, that your work is completed for now and you can enjoy some peace. You've earned that much."

"Thank you, Mom," I told her.

My mother nodded in acknowledgement. "If that is all," she said, as if I'd been the one to request the conversation in the first place. I nodded and, with one last glance at me, Athena turned and strode down the sidewalk once more. A second later, she was gone. I stared at the spot where she had disappeared for a moment, lost in thought, before I turned around and made my way back to where Percy waited for me.

When I reached the bench where I'd last seen him, he was no longer seated there, but had taken up playing with the group of young boys whose stray Frisbee he had caught earlier. The four of them stood in a crooked square, throwing the yellow toy back and forth as if they'd known each other forever. When he caught sight of me, he turned toward the kids and yelled, "Gotta go, guys. Thanks for the game!" and, to the sound of their general disappointment, trotted over to me. His grin vanished when he reached me, and I figured I still must have looked a little dazed. "Are you okay?" he asked.

I nodded, the words of my mother still playing in the back of my mind. _I am grateful Percy Jackson was there to fall with you and to help you survive. The two of you work well together…_ I smiled. "I'm great."

He grinned. "Cool. Ready to go?" I nodded and he turned and bade goodbye to the boys, who got over their unhappiness at his leaving pretty quickly and went back to their Frisbee game as we started walking up the sidewalk once more.

"Please tell me you didn't go up to those boys and ask to play with them like a total creeper," I said, taking Percy's hand, cold from the game of catch, in my own.

He snorted. "No. They saw me sitting on the bench and wanted to know what I was doing. I told them I was waiting for you and they asked if I could play with them until you came back. They're pretty cool kids."

"I hope you told them that it isn't good to talk to strangers."

"I _did_ , actually," he said smugly, "And then Justin, the one who took the Frisbee back from me before, pointed out where his parents were sitting, about thirty feet away from where they were playing, and told me that I wasn't old enough to be a kidnapper anyway," he said with a laugh.

I smirked. "That sounds like something you'd tell someone at ten years old."

He grinned. "Probably. So how did the conversation with your mom go?"

"Fine," I told him, "She thanked me for finding the Athena Parthenos and restoring the gods to their right minds."

"I guess I can see why that would be important to the goddess of wisdom and strategy."

"Yeah. And she also told me that Zeus apparently overrode my head architect position and restored Olympus by magic after he closed it last year."

" _What?"_ Percy asked, irritated.

"I know," I said, "But it's not surprising. I doubt the gods would have been happy to live in the destroyed palace and wait for the war to end before we could get back to fixing it."

"But Annabeth, they told you they were going to let you rebuild it. They made you the Architect of Olympus."

"And they made promises to you that they didn't keep either. There's nothing we can do." I shrugged. "It's okay, Percy. It sounds like they did keep what I built before Olympus closed, and the fact that any of it is my work is an honor. I've got other things to focus on now anyway," I smirked, "You being one of them. A lot has changed since the Titan War and there's nothing stopping me from becoming an architect in the mortal world in a few years. It's fine. Really. I'm not letting my fatal flaw get the best of me anymore."

Percy wore this sort of contented smile now. "I love you," he said when I finished talking.

"Good," I told him, "Because I have no intention of letting you go any time soon."

Percy smiled wider and gripped my hand tighter. "That's fine with me."

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 **Thank for reading!**


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